PCs not dull, admits Apple UK

Even though Apple US says they are...

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Apple UK doesn't believe PCs are as naff as its Stateside parent company does. Don't believe us? Just take a look at the company's TV adverts for Intel-based Macs. In the original, US-oriented ad, Apple takes a dig at "dull" PCs, but in the version cleared for UK audiences the d-word is peculiarly absent.

Compare and contrast. First, the US advert, premiered by CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld Expo in January this year:

"The Intel chip. For years it's been trapped inside PCs, inside dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks, when it could have been doing so much more. Stating today, the Intel chip will be set free and get to live life inside a Mac."

"The Intel chip. For years it's only been inside PCs, dutifully doing all the things PCs were built to do. Stating today, the Intel chip will be set free and also get to do all the things Macs were built to do."

So where's the reference to 'dull' gone? Does the word not apply to PCs running in Blighty? Can it be they're not boring here, even though they (apparently) are in the US?

So why take a more cautious approach in the UK? Well, in the past, Apple's ads have run into trouble with Britain's advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Most famously, it banned a version of the Mac maker's Power Mac G5 television ad, which it deemed to be "misleading" in its claim that said desktop was "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer". A number of AMD fans didn't think so at the time, and the ASA agreed.

Or maybe we should turn to Intel. Its bosses were rumoured to be livid after Apple aired the US version of the ad - was it considered diplomatic to be less disrespectful when the advert was taken across the Atlantic? ®